VIOLENT MEDIA IS GOOD FOR KIDS

VIOLENT MEDIA IS GOOD FOR KIDS

Introduction

Violence may be defined as the intentional use of physical force, either by threatening or actual, against oneself, another person or a against a group whose end result is likely injury, death, psychological harm or maldevelopment. Violent media involves bloody video games, gun-glorifying gangster rap and generally any other form of creative violence. The main point of discussion in this paper is whether this type of media is useful or harmful to kids who are exposed to it. Points raised by Gerald Jones are criticized either positively or negatively in this paper.

Body

The manner in which Gerald was brought up might have greatly affected his perception towards violence. For example, being brought up with kids who thought violence was normal would have made him feel that maybe the whole world was wrong and that his parents were right or maybe his parents were wrong. There seems to be a misunderstanding on the side of his parents. They are providing comics due to their lofty messages of pacifism and tolerance but what their son sees is the violence and the juvenile nature in them.

One of the points raised here is that children need violent entertainment to explore those feelings they have been taught to deny, and to integrate those feelings into a more whole, more complex, more resilient selfhood. However strong this point may seem to be, it is more of weakness and inability to face the real challenge of parenthood when it comes to curbing violence in kids. A practical saying is that whatever a kid is taught at young age will not be forgotten even at old age. Take for example we allowed our kids to spend much of their time with drug addicts so that they can learn to stay positively with the issue of drug abuse, what kind of a generation will we bring up? Kids cannot make well refined decisions and thus need to be well advised and not let to learn by themselves.

The other point the author rises is on how children use violent stories to meet their emotional and developmental needs. He goes on to explain how adults can help them use those stories healthily. The development of the Power Play program is a major step in proving the author’s point that violent media can still play a positive role in the bringing up of responsible adults from the children. A problem may arise however; does this not pose a risk of raising extremists if the adults do not do their duty well? To some extent this is convincing but for it to be effective then there need to be proper set down procedures to make sure only the positive side of the story comes up. Better still is if for sure children will learn to push back against a modern culture that cultivates fear and teaches dependency simply by identifying themselves with starring characters of this kind of media.

The author argues that creative violence helps children to master their rage. It is true that almost everyone feels rage at some point. He argues that controlling and comprehending rage can be terrifying and enraging. That rage can be an energizing emotion that pushes one to resist greater threats, take more control, than one could ever think. He gives an illustration of how through immersion in imaginary combat and identification with a violent protagonist, children are able to utilize their rage against life’s challenges. I however find this point to be biased and not convincing. It tends to portray the minds of children as machines which are programmed to be made strong just by some sort of identification. It leaves out the possibility that most people reach their breaking point before they get to be strong. Also, it does not take into consideration the extremes; for example these children may turn to be rebellious even to their own parents and teachers. This may make parenting a headache and learning difficult if not impossible. The example given of the little girl is convincing but it is clear the role played by the adults in shaping her. In addition this is only a single case that happened to turn out well. However, the example about the older girl is much more convincing. It is good to see that violence can help one to escape vices like drug abuse and drive one into becoming a writer and a political activist. This seems to be an effective way of supporting the author’s point of perception.

The author admits that creative violence is harmful and has led people into being inspired to real life violence. He however argues that it has helped many people compared to the ones it has hurt. A point of concern here is, it is selfish to ignore the minority who have been hurt and focus on those it has helped. In fact only one rotten tomato is required to spoil the whole basket and thus this effect of hurting a few cannot be overlooked. The point would be convincing if we looked it from the point that we need to base our argument on youth violence based on reality. Actually it is true that the highest priority is to prevent our children from growing into violent good-for nothing adults. The issue of easy manipulation for modern kids is not in any way related to violent media and this cannot be used as a point to support the author’s arguments.

The final comments from the article are very much educative. As much as the author criticizes everyone for sending a warning to children about their craving towards violence which should be the gospel preached by every responsible parent, it turns out that he is opposing what should be the truth. Shunning children from violent media is not any similar to substituting an enlightened discussion for the raw material of rageful fantasy. The author should however accept that very few parents if any will be willing to expose their children to any form of risk no matter how good one side of the outcome may seem. Parents and teachers will always be cautious of any events which have a probability of causing harm to their children.

Conclusion

The main points of argument by the author are, that children need violent media to explore their feelings, that violent media is needed for emotional and developmental needs, that in a bid to push back fear and dependency brought about by modernism violence is needed and that this violent media is of great help in the moderation of rage. The author has provided enough evidence to support his stand and my view is that if his points are viewed with fair criticism then truth will be seen.